Current bacterial keratitis treatments, ranging from topical antibiotics to sutured corneal grafts, fail to concurrently address infection control, inflammation modulation, and tissue regeneration. To reconcile effective antimicrobial action with host-tissue protection, we developed an injectable bioinspired composite matrix that integrated photoresponsive collagen/hyaluronic acid-nitrobenzene conjugate (CHB) hydrogel with multifunctional carbon dots (CDs) derived from curcumin and chitosan (CC-CDs). Upon injection, the CHB hydrogel forms a transparent adhesive interface in situ, while the CC-CDs leverage cationic chitosan for targeted bacterial membrane disruption and curcumin-derived nanoenzyme activity for intracellular redox homeostasis. Notably, CC-CDs exhibit over 4000-fold enhanced water solubility relative to hydrophobic curcumin, which significantly amplifies their antioxidant potency and enables the dual action of near-complete bacterial eradication while preserving more than 98% cellular viability. Because of this biocompatibility, the composite hydrogel further facilitates macrophage polarization toward the regenerative M2 phenotype. In vivo, this has reduced the bacterial load by 90% within 24 h, increased anti-inflammatory cell recruitment 6-fold by day 4, and suppressed fibrotic markers by 91.8% while restoring 87.5% of the retinal signal amplitude by day 28. These findings highlight the synergistic capacity of the composite hydrogel for scar-free structural repair and visual function restoration through minimally invasive microenvironment modulation, establishing an alternative to conventional ophthalmic surgery.
Wu et al. (Sat,) studied this question.
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